Arm-Bar Takedown on a Non-Threatening, Seated Domestic-Violence Arrestee Holding a Child Can Violate Clearly Established Fourth Amendment Limits

1. Introduction

In Travis Kotke v. Andrew Ager (Sixth Cir. Aug. 5, 2026) (unpublished), the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to Michigan State Trooper Andrew Ager on an excessive-force claim arising from an arrest inside a home after a domestic-violence investigation.

The encounter began with Plaintiff Travis Kotke’s 911 call alleging his wife, Stephanie, struck him. After separating and interviewing both spouses, Troopers Ager, Tara LaMilza, and Chad Sheldon concluded Kotke was the aggressor and decided to arrest him for domestic violence. The key moment occurred when Kotke—seated and holding his four-year-old son in his lap—refused commands to release the child so officers could handcuff him. Ager used a “straight arm bar” takedown and “lockup” (including a knee to Kotke’s upper back/shoulder area) to secure him, causing injuries.

The appeal presented a narrow interlocutory question: whether Ager was entitled to qualified immunity at summary judgment on the excessive-force claim (Count I). The Sixth Circuit held that, viewing the evidence in Kotke’s favor, a jury could find the force objectively unreasonable and that existing precedent clearly established the unlawfulness of using an injurious takedown against a non-threatening, non-actively resisting arrestee—despite the domestic-violence context and Kotke’s verbal refusal to release his child.

2. Summary of the Opinion

  • Jurisdiction and posture: The court exercised interlocutory jurisdiction only over legal issues, not disputes about “genuine” factual questions, consistent with Johnson v. Jones.
  • Key facts accepted for appeal: Kotke knew he was being arrested for domestic violence; officers suspected drug use based on sweating/rapid speech; officers gave commands to release the child; Kotke verbally refused; Kotke did not physically resist.
  • Constitutional violation (Graham analysis): While domestic violence is a serious/violent offense (factor one), factors two and three favored Kotke: he posed no immediate threat and was not actively resisting (noncompliance plus loud objections did not equate to “active resistance” on these facts).
  • Clearly established law: Sixth Circuit precedent clearly established that officers may not use injurious, significant force (including takedowns) against individuals who are not actively resisting and pose no safety risk.
  • Result: Affirmed denial of qualified immunity and remanded.

Judge Nalbandian dissented, arguing that (1) Ager’s conduct was likely constitutional and (2) even if unconstitutional, the law was not clearly established given Sixth Circuit decisions addressing force in the face of verbal belligerence plus physical noncompliance.

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Interlocutory qualified-immunity review: separating law from fact

The panel’s jurisdictional discussion is anchored in the Supreme Court’s limits on interlocutory review:

  • Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995): appellate courts generally lack jurisdiction, on interlocutory appeal, to reweigh whether factual disputes are “genuine.”
  • Sixth Circuit applications: Klein v. Long, 275 F.3d 544 (6th Cir. 2001), and Shehee v. Luttrell, 199 F.3d 295 (6th Cir. 1999), which permit review of whether, taking the plaintiff’s version, the facts establish a violation of clearly established law.
  • Recent formulations: Heeter v. Bowers, 99 F.4th 900 (6th Cir. 2024), and Adams v. Blount County, 946 F.3d 940 (6th Cir. 2020), reiterating that only “issues of law” are reviewable.
  • Summary-judgment framing: King v. City of Rockford, 97 F.4th 379 (6th Cir. 2024) (quoting Stoudemire v. Mich. Dep't of Corr. and Kovacic v. Cuyahoga Dep't of Child. & Fam. Servs.) supplies the familiar two-part qualified-immunity test.

The court used these cases to prune the parties’ factual characterizations: it accepted undisputed items (commands were given; Kotke refused; he was told he was under arrest for domestic violence) while rejecting argumentative gloss (e.g., whether “belligerent” implied combativeness).

2) Fourth Amendment excessive force: the Graham framework, refined by timing context

  • Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989): the controlling standard—objective reasonableness under the totality, guided by severity of crime, immediate threat, and active resistance/flight.
  • Franke v. Janes, 168 F.4th 797 (6th Cir. 2026): a recent Sixth Circuit articulation of the Graham factors, including domestic-violence calls as often serious.
  • Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025): the excessive-force inquiry has “no time limit”; earlier events can inform the reasonableness of the force used later. The panel invoked Barnes to justify considering the 30+ minute lead-up (calm scene, no threats) when assessing the takedown.
  • Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. at 1 (1985): cited via Graham for the proposition that the key question is whether the totality justified the “particular sort” of seizure.

3) What counts as “active resistance” (and what does not)

The opinion’s core doctrinal move is to place Kotke’s behavior on the “non-active” side of Sixth Circuit precedent, even though he refused commands:

  • Eldridge v. City of Warren, 533 F. App'x 529 (6th Cir. 2013): “noncompliance alone does not indicate active resistance”; something more is typically required. The panel also distinguished “deliberate act of defiance using one's own body” examples (e.g., locking arms under body while kicking/screaming).
  • Kent v. Oakland County, 810 F.3d 384 (6th Cir. 2016): yelling and refusing commands can still fall short of active resistance if not threatening and not akin to continued resistance/hostility.
  • Goodwin v. City of Painesville, 781 F.3d 314 (6th Cir. 2015): a single refusal (without more) may not be active resistance.
  • Shumate v. City of Adrian, 44 F.4th 427 (6th Cir. 2022): verbal jabs and gestures, absent overtly threatening language, are not active resistance; also used for the “betrayed no intent to injure” framing.
  • Groth v. Hill, No. 25-1053, 2026 WL 674352 (6th Cir. March 10, 2026): cited for the principle that a suspect must have sufficient time to comply before force escalates; here, only ~15–20 seconds elapsed between the first attempt to coax the child away and the takedown.

4) Arm-bar takedowns as significant, injury-producing force

To classify the “straight arm bar” as significant and potentially injurious force, the panel cited a line of cases where similar maneuvers produced serious injuries:

  • Meirthew v. Amore, 417 F. App'x 494 (6th Cir. 2011)
  • Sevenski v. Artfitch, Nos. 21-1391/1402, 2022 WL 2826818 (6th Cir. July 20, 2022)
  • Bozung v. Rawson, 439 F. App'x 513 (6th Cir. 2011)
  • Ryan v. Hazel Park, 279 F. App'x 335 (6th Cir. 2008)
  • Fox v. DeSoto, 489 F.3d 227 (6th Cir. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223 (2009)
  • Additional support: McCaig v. Raber, 515 F. App'x 551 (6th Cir. 2013), and Lawler v. City of Taylor, 268 F. App'x 384 (6th Cir. 2008)

The point is not merely that takedowns can injure, but that officers in this circuit are on notice that such maneuvers are “significant” force requiring correspondingly weighty justification under Graham.

5) Clearly established law: the required specificity

The panel rejected Ager’s attempt to define the right at an ultra-specific level (domestic violence + holding child + profanity + refusal), relying on Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit guidance about the “appropriate level of generality”:

  • Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 (1987): rights must be defined with sufficient specificity to give fair notice.
  • Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7 (2015) (per curiam): cautions against defining rights at too high a level of generality.
  • Sixth Circuit “too much/too little” generality: Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff's Off., 695 F.3d 505 (6th Cir. 2012).
  • Novel factual circumstances can still be clearly covered: Moody v. Mich. Gaming Control Bd., 871 F.3d 420 (6th Cir. 2017) (quoting Sutton v. Metro Gov't of Nash. & Davidson Cnty.).
  • Need only “sufficiently analogous” precedent: Rhodes v. Michigan, 10 F.4th 665 (6th Cir. 2021).
  • Supreme Court confirmation of notice standard: Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna, 595 U.S. 1 (2021).

6) Sixth Circuit “gratuitous violence” line: no injurious force when not actively resisting

The panel located this case within an established thread of Sixth Circuit authority:

  • Meadows v. City of Walker, 46 F.4th 416 (6th Cir. 2022): clearly established that officers cannot use “injurious physical force” to subdue a suspect not actively resisting.
  • Reed v. Campbell County, 80 F.4th 734 (6th Cir. 2023): clearly established ban on gratuitous violence against individuals not actively resisting.
  • Baker v. City of Hamilton, 471 F.3d 601 (6th Cir. 2006): people who pose no safety risk are entitled to be free from gratuitous violence during arrest (quoted via Sevenski v. Artfitch).
  • Predating the 2021 arrest: Coffey v. Carroll, 933 F.3d 577 (6th Cir. 2019); Griffith v. Coburn, 473 F.3d 650 (6th Cir. 2007); Shreve v. Jessamine Cnty. Fiscal Ct., 453 F.3d 681 (6th Cir. 2006).

7) Domestic-violence context: serious, but not a “blank check”

The panel agreed domestic-violence suspicion can support some degree of force, citing:

  • Kapuscinski v. City of Gibraltar, 821 F. App'x 604 (6th Cir. 2020)
  • Goodrich v. Everett, 193 F. App'x 551 (6th Cir. 2006)
  • Franke v. Janes, 168 F.4th 797 (6th Cir. 2026)

But it distinguished those situations: in Kapuscinski v. City of Gibraltar officers encountered an apparent assault and a perceived danger to a victim; in Goodrich v. Everett the suspect’s conduct could be interpreted as evasion. Here, by contrast, officers had over 30 minutes without violence, Kotke was seated, outnumbered, and (on plaintiff’s version) not physically resisting.

8) The dissent’s comparators and the majority’s response

The dissent relied chiefly on cases treating verbal hostility plus physical noncompliance as active resistance:

  • Shanaberg v. Licking County, 936 F.3d 453 (6th Cir. 2019)
  • Caie v. West Bloomfield Township, 485 F. App'x 92 (6th Cir. 2012)
  • Eldridge v. City of Warren, 533 F. App'x 529 (6th Cir. 2013)
  • Correa v. Simone, 528 F. App'x 531 (6th Cir. 2013) (discussed in dissent’s footnote)

The majority separated this case from Shanaberg v. Licking County and Caie v. West Bloomfield Township by emphasizing the absence of immediate safety risk (no “armed and dangerous” report; no threatening posture) and the lack of a bodily defiance pattern like locking arms under the body. That framing matters because the majority’s “clearly established” conclusion depends on characterizing Kotke’s conduct as non-active resistance and the threat level as low at the time force was used.

B. Legal Reasoning

The opinion proceeds in three linked steps:

  1. Define the usable record on interlocutory review. Applying Heeter v. Bowers and Klein v. Long, the court accepted only undisputed facts and plaintiff-favorable inferences, while rejecting argumentative labels (“belligerent,” “physically agitated”) not established by the audio record and deposition testimony.
  2. Apply Graham v. Connor as informed by Barnes v. Felix. Even though the suspected offense involved violence, the panel gave decisive weight to threat and resistance at the moment of force, contextualized by the prior 30 minutes. Kotke was seated, outnumbered, did not threaten officers, and—on his version—did not physically resist. The short time to comply (15–20 seconds) further undercut characterizing the situation as active resistance justifying a takedown.
  3. Reject hyper-specific right-definition and locate an analogous clearly established rule. Using Anderson v. Creighton, Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff's Off., and Rhodes v. Michigan, the panel held that prior cases clearly established that “significant” injurious force (including takedowns) is unlawful against an arrestee who is not actively resisting and poses no safety risk, even if the underlying offense is serious. It emphasized that domestic-violence suspicion is not a categorical permission slip.

The court also addressed and narrowed Ager’s reliance on Parsons v. City of Ann Arbor, No. 22-1338, 2023 WL 3413898 (6th Cir. May 12, 2023), noting that the justification there included aggression, assaultive conduct, and flight—features not present here when facts are viewed favorably to Kotke.

C. Impact

Although unpublished and “NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION,” the decision is still instructive in three practical ways for Sixth Circuit litigation and police practices:

  • Child-in-arms noncompliance is not automatically “active resistance.” The court treated refusal to release a child—paired with loud objections—as insufficient, without more, to cross into active resistance, especially where the suspect is seated and not threatening.
  • Time-to-comply is a meaningful variable. By highlighting that only 15–20 seconds elapsed, and citing Groth v. Hill, the opinion strengthens arguments that quick escalation can be unreasonable and that officers must often allow a realistic window for compliance before deploying high-force tactics.
  • Domestic violence raises the “severity” factor but does not eclipse threat/resistance. The opinion reinforces that even violent-crime suspicion does not justify injurious takedowns absent immediate danger or active resistance; courts will still demand a tight fit between the force chosen and the threat/resistance actually presented.

For future cases, the opinion will likely be cited (at least persuasively) for the proposition that takedowns are “significant force,” and that officers cannot bootstrap substantial force from verbal refusal alone—particularly where the individual is stationary, outnumbered, and not threatening at the moment of force.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Qualified immunity
A doctrine shielding officers from damages unless (1) the facts show a constitutional violation and (2) the unlawfulness was “clearly established” so a reasonable officer would have known the conduct was illegal.
Interlocutory appeal
An appeal taken before the case ends. In qualified-immunity cases, appellate courts can review legal questions but generally cannot re-decide which factual disputes are genuine (Johnson v. Jones).
Objective reasonableness / Graham factors
The Fourth Amendment question is not whether the officer acted in “good faith,” but whether the force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances—especially considering the crime’s severity, immediate threat, and active resistance/flight (Graham v. Connor).
Passive vs. active resistance
Passive resistance often means noncompliance without physical struggle or threatening conduct. Active resistance typically involves physical struggle, attempts to flee, or overtly threatening behavior. The Sixth Circuit has repeatedly said “noncompliance alone” usually is not active resistance (Eldridge v. City of Warren).
Straight arm-bar takedown / “lockup”
A control technique that can drive a person to the floor face-first; the opinion treats it as “significant” force given its injury potential, especially when paired with body-weight pressure (knee in back/shoulder).
“Clearly established” law
The plaintiff need not find a prior case with identical facts; it is enough that existing, sufficiently analogous precedent would put a reasonable officer on notice (Anderson v. Creighton; Rhodes v. Michigan).

5. Conclusion

Travis Kotke v. Andrew Ager affirms that, even in domestic-violence arrests, officers may not leap to injurious takedowns where the suspect poses no immediate safety risk and is not actively resisting—particularly when the suspect is seated, outnumbered, and given only seconds to comply. The decision’s central takeaway is that “noncompliance + loud protest,” without physical resistance or overt threats, can fall within clearly established Sixth Circuit protections against significant force, making qualified immunity unavailable at summary judgment.